Life in the Blueberry Patch

Were you there?

I grew up in a small church, with a choir headed by a man who would one day marry me and my husband. His voice rang out so deep, so strong that every Good Friday the words of that old spiritual would rattle my soul.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

I was a brand new fifteen when it happened. I felt so old then, so perfectly able to understand but now looking back I think, I was fifteen? I was only fifteen years old when we went through that?

I didn’t know until math class was over, until we walked into second period history class and everyone standing around the TV. Two tall towers were smoking and my history teacher said, “We’re just going to watch this for a few minutes and then get class started.”

Of course we never did.

It was picture day that day. Nine months later I brought my yearbook home and as my dad flipped through it I mentioned that those pictures were taken then. He asked,

“Why was everyone smiling?”

I suppose those were the only smiles that day.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

I didn’t understand what was happening. The rest of the world had realized when they saw the second plane crash but I still didn’t understand. Was there a problem with air traffic control in New York? Why hadn’t the planes simply swerved out of the way?

We watched and we watched. The correspondent at the Pentagon told the anchor that, don’t be alarmed, but he just felt a rumble and there were construction workers running out of the building; he was going to go investigate. The anchor begged him not to.

That was the moment I understood. I understood that we didn’t know what was happening, that we were all terrified. That this was the moment successful news reporters, years later when they sat down to write their autobiographies, would say defined their career. This was the moment I knew that the America I had grown up in was a lie. We weren’t safe, we weren’t loved, we weren’t invincible, we weren’t the chosen. We were vulnerable and we didn’t know what was going to happen.

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

That night we watched the news as a family, huddled around the TV for hours. I finally went to my room to turn on the radio, to forget for a moment, but all the radio stations were playing news as well. I fell asleep crying.

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

I never understood the explanations we were given. They hate our freedom. They hate our color TV and our women who are hold positions of power and our men who love other men. They hate our ideals and wealth and everything we stand for. They hate us and our God.

Because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter why they hate because there is never a justifiable reason to hate. And we can rationalize it and explain it away, we can shift the blame and use it to comfort ourselves, but at the end of the day, hatred will always be irrational.

Reciprocated hate it is none the better.

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

In the years since that day, those three numbers have become a political trump card. It has been used, abused, thrown around to prove a point. We have used the terror we all felt that day against ourselves. I hear September 11th and I think politics, I roll my eyes, I look away.

Because I forget. I forget watching the towers collapse before my eyes, the dust cloud swarming and seeing something I have never seen in this country – people running for their lives. I forget the news vans covered with missing flyers and stories of shopkeepers who passed out tennis shoes to women who had worn high heels to work that day and had to walk miles home. I forget what it was like to watch the news every day for hours, for weeks, trying to comprehend, trying to understand, not realizing I never full would.

Remember Blueberries for Sal?
This is my little blueberry patch on a hill. The spot for me to sit, reflect, to share, and to be wonderfully messy with blueberry stained lips and grass stained pants. To bask in the sunlight and share my encounters with bears.
Please, feel free to join, as I figure out my faith, marriage, and all that life has to offer.

Blueberries for you, too?

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